Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [65]
“Yes,” Flemmons said. “It was me.”
Neither of us had anything to say, or any idea how to respond, when we heard that.
Flemmons was there for at least another quarter hour, and he asked Tolliver about twenty more questions, getting every detail of the conversation he’d had with Victoria, but Tolliver never elaborated on what Victoria had told him. I was surprised—and not a little worried—that Tolliver was playing the situation so close to the vest.
I told Rudy Flemmons about the mysterious person at my door the night before, the person who’d knocked before room service came. I didn’t really think that person had been Victoria Flores, but I wanted to tell someone that the little incident had occurred.
At last, Detective Flemmons got up to leave. I felt incredibly relieved when I’d shut the door behind him. I waited, listening, and after a moment I heard him go down the hall to the elevators. I heard the ping of the arriving elevator, and then the whoosh of the doors as they opened and shut. I even opened our door and looked around to make sure no one was there.
I was getting paranoid as hell, but I thought I had good reason.
“Tell me,” I said. Though Tolliver was looking very tired and got up laboriously so I could help him back to the bed, I was determined to hear what he’d been about to say when Rudy Flemmons had come to our door.
When he was flat on his back, Tolliver said, “She asked me if I believed the Joyces really wanted to find the baby Mariah Parish carried, or if I thought they wanted to kill the child.”
“Kill the child,” I said, stunned. Of course, I got the idea right away. “A Joyce baby would inherit at least a fourth of the estate, I guess. An heir of the body, isn’t that the phrase? If the lawyer who drew it up used that phrase, the kid would inherit whether it’s legitimate or not. I don’t suppose there’s any question of Rich Joyce marrying Mariah on the sly?”
Tolliver shook his head. “No, he would have married her legally, not in some made-up ceremony. He was a four-square kind of guy, according to Victoria. And if the baby was his, he’d own up to it. If he’d known about it.”
“She was sure about that?”
“She was sure because she’d interviewed a lot of people who’d known Rich Joyce, people who’d been close to him. They all told Victoria that Lizzie Joyce is like her granddad, no-nonsense and basically honest, but Kate and Drex are all about the money.”
“What about Chip, the boyfriend?”
“She didn’t mention him.”
“Victoria’d found all of this out already?”
“Yeah, she’d been busy.”
“Why’d she tell you all this? I’m guessing it wasn’t because she thought you were cute, since she was thinking about getting back together with Rudy Flemmons.”
“Because she thought one of the Joyces had shot me. That’s why she told me.”
“Okay, I’m still not following.”
“They all think you know more about Rich Joyce’s death than you said at the graveside. They’re upset because you identified Mariah’s cause of death and raised the question of the existence of a baby at all. They’re afraid, I guess, that you’ll find the baby’s body.”
“Victoria didn’t think the baby was alive? She thought someone had killed the baby?”
I felt sick inside. I’ve seen and heard of bad things, evil things, because of this “gift” the lightning left me. In the past, so many babies died; so many things could go wrong, things that are rare now. I’d stood on many tiny graves and seen the still, white faces, and it never failed to be a sad moment. The murder of a child was the worst of crimes, in my book, the absolute rock bottom of evil.
“That’s what she was assuming. She couldn’t find any birth record. So maybe Mariah had the child by herself.”
“Oh, what kind of woman doesn’t go to the hospital when she feels her time’s there?”
“Maybe one who can’t,” Tolliver said.
I felt my lips compress with disgust and horror. “You mean someone wouldn’t let her go to the hospital? Or simply allowed her to